Tuscaloosa has had a city council for generations and had never put a Black woman in charge of it. On October 20, 2026, Raevan Howard’s own colleagues did it, and they did it without a single vote against.
Howard represents District 2 and is in her third term. She is a single mother of five. “It feels like a true honor,” she said. “I’m also very thankful to my colleagues on the Tuscaloosa City Council because this was not possible without their support. And that support was unanimous.”
The seat runs in her life. Her father served on the council before her. As a child she watched Harrison Taylor, who also represented District 2, become the first Black man to serve as council president. She went on to serve under two presidents of her own, including the late Kip Tyner.
She credits the watching. “I was always taught that great leaders have to know how to follow,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn a lot about their styles of leadership.”
On being the first, she does not flinch at the weight of it. “Pressure can either bust pipes or produce diamonds,” she said. “So, pressure is not always bad.”
What she wants the job to do is connect people to things that already exist. She says she is in her community every day as a councilwoman and wants the presidency to widen that, pulling city leaders, community organizations and agencies into the same room so residents can get to resources. Her own district’s needs are infrastructure and capital projects, and she is candid that one budget cannot meet seven districts’ wishes at once.
She measures the job by what is left behind, not by the vote that gave it to her. “If it was five years from now, I would like to look back and say, you know, that was a tough agenda item,” she said. “But we kept going, and it benefited our community, you know, in a significant way.”
And she put the point plainly for anyone reading from a harder place . Never stop trying to reach your goals, she said. A woman’s current situation, however she ended up in it, only means she has to find different ways to make her dreams happen.
